At breakfast I made my appearance on two consecutive mornings a ludicrous figure, the object at once of pity and amusement: eyes bunged up, lips swelled, and cheeks puffed out, like bully _Ajax_ in _Homer Travestie_, all of which, to a young man of decent exterior, and who, in those days, rather valued himself on his appearance, was exceedingly annoying. Mrs. Hearty, though with a look in which the comic and the tragic struggled for the mastery, now took compassion on me, expressed great regret for the oversight, and furnished my bed with a set of musquito-curtains. “Whine away, you rascals,” said I then to the musquitoes, exultingly; “blow your penny trumpets, you everlasting vagabonds! you have had your last meal on me, rest assured.” What glorious sleep I had after that! After a fortnight’s stay at Madras, and a vain search for Ramee Sawmee Dabash, who, having some linen of mine to get washed, and a small balance of money to account for, thought it “too much trouble” to make his appearance, I bid adieu to my hospitable friends, reembarked on board the _Rottenbeam Castle_, and set sail for Bengal. Our society, officers and passengers, met again with renewed pleasure, temporary separation being a great enlivener of the kindly feelings, which, like everything else, require tact and management to keep them in a state of vigour. Each, during his sojourn on shore, appeared to have renovated his stock of ideas, and to have picked up something congenial to his peculiar humour. The colonel had met with several old friends, and matters to be told, “wondrous and strange,” and quite out of the common, followed as a natural consequence. Grinnerson had had some “rare larks and sprees” ashore, and been “coming the old soldier” over some young hands at the Navy Tavern. Miss Dobbikins criticised rather severely (as her Bath experiences gave her every right to do) the _tournure_ of the Madras belles, whom she had seen at balls and _conversazione_. Capt. Marpeet, who had been at sundry drills and reviews, favoured us with elaborate discussions on the military performances of the _Mulls_,[4] which he considered very inferior to those of the _Qui hyes_, by whom, to borrow his own nervous and expressive phraseology, “they were beaten by chalks.” Even the usually taciturn Grundy became eloquent, when he spoke of the _luxuries_ of the tents, and his sufferings from the musquitoes; and as for myself, being of an artistical turn, I enlarged principally on the interesting character of Oriental scenery, but omitting, of course, some of the peculiar attractions of the “coco-nut grove.” CHAPTER VI.